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On August 21, 2003, at 2:45pm, my wife of 34 years, Rebecca, died in my arms in an emergency room.

The last words we spoke were in perfect synchronization: "I love you with all my heart."

How
To Tame A Wild Fox

Everybody
said "no", we said "yes".

But
this may not be as easy as it sounds,

and
it's certainly not for everyone.

Update
9/2009: As I view my visitor logs, I notice hits by the
dozen from various search engines - many of them ask "can you tame a
fox", or other search phrases to that effect.

Personally, I'm convinced you
could tame almost any living creature - but this depends upon
multiple factors, plus a lot of psychology. In my
limited experience, (one fox, a few hawks, several doves, rabbits,
fish, and exotic wild birds), there's one thing that is an
absolute requirement - food. Food is the link which creates
dependency - it "re-establishes the umbilical cord".

However, "tame" might mean
different things to many people. Consider your own definition
of "tame".

Another requirement is patience.
Our sense of "time" is not the same as a wild animal.
Therefore, we must be willing to spend hours, days - even weeks -
proving to the wild animal that we not only provide food, but we
are a part of their group, pack, or flock. This is where the
psychology comes in: I've found it's necessary to PROVE that
I'm not a danger or a threat in any way. Somehow - each
situation is slightly different - I must behave in a way that
creates trust, while avoiding anything which would put
trust in question.

Yet another critical requirement
is space. Confinement of any type creates mental stress.
Stress (of any nature) does not contribute to a wild animal
developing trust in a human - and nearly ALL wild animals
instinctively avoid humans. When confined, there is nowhere to
go - the animal can't avoid or escape. This survival instinct
(flight) has been part of almost every wild animal for millions of years
- the reason is simple: humans KILL these animals. Through
centuries, animals have learned, instincts have been formed - stay
away from the vertical animal known as "human".

After approximately 6 months with
Scamp, I feel relatively certain I could tame nearly any wild
animal. I'm not blowing my own horn here, but the
psychological process of creating trust and dependency should work
on nearly any wild animal - especially if the process can begin
at a young age.

There are many
species of wild animals that I wouldn't even dare try to tame. I'm
referring to truly dangerous or poisonous animals. I just don't have the
courage for that.

I can bore you with these
two stories.

Many years back, I had a 200 gallon aquarium, with nothing in it but
water, rocks, and a filter. I went fishing, and brought home a largemouth bass,
which weighed approximately 3 pounds. He went into the fish
tank. At first, I'd offer food, and he'd hide behind a rock -
about 6' away, at the other end of the tank - as far from me as
possible. Within a few
days, the bass was taking food from my hand. In less than a
month, he'd come to the surface so I could pet him - with no food
involved. A fish being petted by a human?
It makes no sense - it's completely against his instincts - and he
was confined! (I think it's understandable that I
couldn't dig out a lake for him.) He lived here for about 4 months, then I brought
him to the lake down the street (the same lake I had caught him) and set him
free. Amazingly, he'd grown and gained weight during those 4 months.
And - he actually allowed me to pick him up - out of the water -
some of the time, anyway.

A dove flew into the phone lines
and nearly severed one wing. There was no way to fix the
damage. My wife and I amputated what was irreparable, and
sutured the wing, so it would heal. The dove lived here for
about 2 years, and spent more time on our shoulders and heads than
you'd believe. We developed a very basic level of
"communication" - the dove learned to lift his good wing
to "tell" us various things, and his demeanor - for example, fright
(and his desire to escape) - was easily recognized. We provided the dove with a "safe place"
- an
airline crate with branches, and a good hiding place (just a small
cardboard box) inside - so he
could completely avoid other people and dogs. Exactly like the
other animals mentioned, the dove wanted no part of any other
humans. If he was in the office and someone arrived, his
behaviors clearly indicated he wanted to get away. Off to his
"safe place".

Essentially, what I'm trying to
convey, is that a wild animal never wants to be near humans.
To overcome this powerful instinct, it's necessary to prove -
without any doubt - that the animal has nothing to fear from you.
Often, this requires a LOT of time and patience - and an
understanding that wild animals are "wild" for a very good reason.

Another consideration is your own
personality. Would you be angry if a fox urinated all over
your sofa? Exhibiting anger won't build trust, as I've
explained. Wild animals haven't got a clue how to live in a
human's environment, so you can logically expect damage, mess, and
broken belongings. You should ask yourself if you really
have the tolerance for these inevitable occurrences, because they
WILL happen.

So, in conclusion, the answer is
both "yes" and "no".

You might like to read the rest of
this page and
Scamp's Journal for more information.

I've been fortunate enough to be able to make some
interesting observations during the last few months. There are several
dozen people who have followed the progress of Scamp, the wild-and-tame grey
fox. Because they expressed interest, I thought I'd write a small
"how to" article for anyone who might care to try this one
themselves. Maybe some of my experiences will help the next person.

First step in this article is to mention that I'm not a
professional wild animal person, in fact, I wouldn't even qualify as an
amateur. Scamp is my only experience with a wild fox, and that has only
been since May 11, 2001. So this article certainly isn't being written
from years of fox experience with dozens of foxes.

I have over 20 years
experience in dog training, so I'm able to see many parallels between a young
fox and a puppy of similar age. In some ways, a fox is identical to a
puppy, and in other ways, there's no similarity.

While I certainly wouldn't TELL anyone what to do, it
may seem as if that's what I'm doing. It isn't - it's just my style of
writing, so kindly excuse it.

Taming a fox requires an infinite amount of patience and
tolerance. Unlike raising a puppy, the fox would probably do much better
in a larger area. You can expect a wild fox to try and avoid you, and
he'll do this by running away and hiding. While it may be possible to do
this in a 3 room apartment, I don't suggest it.

I was particularly fortunate, because Scamp was old
enough to eat solid food when he arrived, making feeding him a simple enough
task. No need for bottles, eyedroppers, or syringes, and all the mess and
slop associated with them.

He was also young enough that he didn't have weeks or
months of independence, and still needed support. To me, this seems an
ideal age to raise and tame a fox. I'd estimate Scamp's age between 6 and
8 weeks when he arrived.

Unlike a puppy, Scamp was genuinely afraid of us
initially. This is a very important issue, and I've tried to keep it in my
mind at all times. Instincts, formed over the last 6 million years or so,
told Scamp to keep as far away from us humans - vertical animals - as
possible. "Away" means flight or escape, and that means
something will probably get knocked over or broken.

One of the key issues
in trying to tame a fox might be where the taming takes place. The ideal
place might be in a large enough area that's almost indestructible. Again,
we're fortunate, since we have a 25' x 20' workshop with wooden walls and floor,
making it essentially "fox proof". There are very few items in
the shop that can hurt Scamp, and if he knocks things on the floor, well, that's
OK, too. You can expect that Scamp gets into, under, and on top of
everything, often toppling what he jumps on. He explores constantly, and
experiments with anything that he finds. Although his curiosity causes him
to pick things up and move them around, he's not as destructive as we
anticipated - definitely less destructive than a teething puppy.

The
easiest way to understand what he's probably going to be fascinated with is to
realize there's no way to understand. A box full of packing material
(popcorn) amuses Scamp for an hour, as he removes one piece of packing at a
time, runs all around with it, then finally jumps in the box and digs out
hundreds of the little pieces of packing foam all over the room. A wood
screw fascinates him. A paint brush is worth carrying around for 20
minutes, tossing it through the air and chasing it. One of his favorite
toys is a piece of 1/2" clear plastic tubing. Clear plastic tubing?
I'll never understand. He seems to be too
busy to take enough time to chew things and wreck them, with one
exception. He likes to chew on wires of almost any kind. This can be
pretty dangerous if he gets his mouth on anything more powerful than a little 9
volt wall wart.

When Scamp got here, we had no interest in caging
him. So a lot of our decisions kind of revolved around the idea that Scamp
was going to be "loose", much as any young puppy would. The
problem of housebreaking solved itself when we put a pan of kitty litter down,
and Scamp used it instantly. Because he's been almost 100% reliable with
the kitty litter, this enabled us to allow him free run indoors, both in the
house and the office/workshop.

I believe the fact that Scamp can escape human
confrontation by running to the nearest hiding place has shown him quickly not
to fear us. If he were caged or confined, I think the process would have
taken a lot longer, and produced considerably more mental stress for him.
Other than the first 2 days Scamp was here, he was never caged in any way.

Consider what I just wrote. A cage
psychologically "imprisons" the fox. Compare that to free access in our
office (340 square feet) plus the workshop (500 square feet). This allowed
our attitudes to be, "if you want to go hide, go right ahead.
We're not going to interfere."

I'd like to make something clear at this point. I
would never go out and try to catch a wild fox. Scamp came into our lives
quite accidentally, as a very young pup, and we believed he would be killed
quickly if we didn't provide food and safety for him. There may be people
who agree and others who disagree, but we felt we could raise him as a tame fox,
yet still release him and have him learn to hunt and survive on his own.
So far, our predictions are true - he's doing very well both outdoors as a wild
fox, and he still chooses to socialize, play, and especially, EAT, nearby his
human "pack". We live just outside the city limits in a sort of
"semi country" area where each home is on at least one acre of
property. About 100 yards away is a nature preserve of several thousand
acres. Typical home construction of this age, in this area, is known as
"pier and beam", meaning the houses are built up off the ground
slightly, not on a concrete slab. This provides an open area below the
house - a natural fox den. And no digging required!

Don't move fast. Actually, don't even bother,
since the fox is infinitely faster than we are, anyway. Fast movements on
our part will serve only to frighten the fox - that's counterproductive.
Example: Scamp grabs my cigarette package or sunglasses, and he's within
my reach. I won't grab for him, or try and chase him as he dashes
away. I just follow him at my own pace, at some point I'll be able to recover
the object. If it gets chewed a little, well, that's what little foxes
do.

I may choose to make a negative association - this is quite simple to
do, and the fox is CERTAINLY intelligent enough to learn. Just like
a puppy, I bring his attention (meaning his nose) to focus on the object at
issue while holding him firmly. Once we're focused, he gets a couple of
light thumps on his nose with one finger and some guttural "AH!AH!"
sounds to link to the uncomfortable feeling. It's not powerful punishment,
yet it's enough to make him think about that object.

Scamp has learned to respect my iced tea cup
- most
of the time. In the past, he's invited himself to drink out of
the cup, and frequently knocked it over, dumping tea and ice all over the
carpet. After a couple of corrections, he waits until I hold the cup and
tell him "OK" before drinking. As I learned, even a wild fox
is infinitely more trainable than I would have ever imagined.

We've spent quite a bit of time on the floor, playing
with Scamp. When we're down there, we appear a lot smaller, thus less
intimidating. By now, our play has escalated far beyond this point, but he
obviously felt safer several weeks ago when we were "smaller".

His indoor and outdoor play are very different.
Outside, he's much more tuned into the environment, and plays in shorter
"episodes", interspersed with mad dashes under the shop to
"safety". He practices a sort of "dodge and weave"
style of running, evading his imaginary pursuers quite effectively.
Indoors, the play is quite a bit more intense and concentrated.

Scamp had the misfortune to contract a case of giardia,
a severe intestinal virus. Fortunately, we had prior experience with
giardia, and a supply of medication to treat this. Three Flagyl (metronidazole) pills a day for
three days solved the problem, while also creating some chewed fingers. It
is not easy to force pills down a wiggling fox's throat, you can believe
this. Because Scamp is a wild fox, taking him to a veterinarian is not an
option.

We tend to let Scamp get into things and do what he's
going to do, rather than interfere. And we try to let him do things
himself. For example, he wanted to climb a tree. We stood back and let him
fail and fall down a number of times until he got serious enough to get up to a
limb. Once up there, he looked pretty unsure of himself, but we let him
find his own way back down, too. I think we've developed a kind of
"it's up to you" attitude with Scamp. We may want him to do
something, for example, come inside the shop, but that may not happen.

We can never forget that, unlike a puppy, Scamp
is a wild animal. And, because we never wanted to totally
domesticate him, our plans were for him to be free to do what foxes do.

Scamp is very positive about being touched, outdoors and
indoors, too. This lends itself to being able to pick him up (mostly)
whenever I want to. I think this may have been learned because we'd feed
and touch him dozens of times without picking him up or forcing him in any
way. Example: he comes to me for a treat, and I pet him as he's
eating it. Then I walk away from him. Or he'll hop in my lap, and
I'll scratch his neck, then take my hand away. I believe by keeping very
low pressure, Scamp has learned not to worry about our hands coming towards him.

Rather than snatching and grabbing at Scamp, I pick him up in a way that he finds less threatening. Typically, I can
either get one hand under his chest and belly, or I can pick him up by
the nape of his neck, then readjust to holding him under his belly.
Either way, he's well supported, and quite comfortable with being carried around. He shows no problem with being held,
until he's ready to go. I generally respect this, and immediately put him
down when he wiggles. An exception to this is when he's showing
fear. Then he climbs all over you like a ladder. My objective here
was to calm the fear in a relaxed, reasonable way. As we started to
learn about lightning and thunderstorms, I decided to take him outside (on the
covered porch) and deal with the weather. He typically would go and hide
from the sound of thunder, and lightning just terrified him. He struggled
for a little while, but soon accepted being held, as we sat outside watching
thunderstorms. We've worked very hard to get Scamp to the point where he
doesn't avoid our hands, and this may be a very important point in the relationship.
However, he won't let a stranger anywhere near him.

Different types of food cause Scamp to behave in
different ways. We've noticed that when he's eating anything wild -
"aggressive food" - or food which he kills, he gets very, very
possessive. Chicks, mice, lizards, grasshoppers, etc. seem to bring out
the "wild animal" in him. At these times, he growls, gapes,
flattens his ears, and defends his food, occasionally even taking it further
away from us. In contrast, "passive food" - dog food, table
scraps, etc. - don't seem to elicit this kind of defensiveness from him.
He's typically very calm about food, and regularly eats from our hand without
any problem. I might add, we have never tried to take any food away from
him at all, so we can conclude that some instincts are at work here.

Nothing at all is "sacred" to Scamp.
He'll happily chew the arm of an $1100 leather chair, toss sneakers around the
room, or chase one of his toys - it's all the same to him. Anything he
damages or destroys is just par for the course, since he has no values, he doesn't
understand, know, or
care.

While he's playing, he'll bite any part of your anatomy, if you can
stand it. He plays pretty rough, too. But, since I'm used to playing
a little rough with the dogs, it really doesn't matter. There's not much a
10 pound fox can do to you that you'd need medical attention, I assure you. We've been covered with
scratches and punctures for the last two months, and he shows no sign of letting
up or getting any gentler. Gloves are quite a help, but you have to wear
them for them to be effective. Usually, the gloves are over there
someplace when Scamp is over here, ready to play. Also, we've noticed that
when you are wearing gloves, that's the time Scamp wants to bite forearms
and shoulders.

He'll charge across the office at top speed, and leap into your lap.
Whatever you were holding may, or may not, still be in your hands after the
leap. If it hits the floor, he'll invariably dash away with it.
Scamp also snatches objects, sometimes making you think, "what is this adorable
little maniac doing?" For example, he's
taken the spoon right out of my hand while I'm eating ice cream. And he
loves stealing a paper napkin and running away with it. After the dash, he
just drops it and loses interest. I'm not sure why he takes things, but
they must fascinate him in some way. Whatever the reason, it's just a
young fox's behavior, and it's not that hard to accept.

Scamp can be gentle, but that's a comparatively rare
occurrence. In his quieter moments, when he isn't playing, he really likes
being petted, and, amazingly, he's learned to like being brushed, too!
This is an example of his tolerance - at first, when he saw the brush
coming, he took off for Mars. Gradually, when he was asleep, I brushed
just the back of his neck, by his ears. He loved this, and soon tolerated
it even when he was wide awake and up on his feet. The neck brushing
expanded to his back, sides, chest, and face. He likes having his front
legs brushed, but not his back legs. We're still working on his tail, but
considering his initial reaction to a brush, we've come a long, long
ways.

He also kisses us constantly, generally on our noses,
faces,
and hands. I don't know for sure if this is affection, but it's nice to
imagine it is. He's completely gentle around our faces, thankfully, and has
never tried to bite. He likes to play with ears, too, and when he nibbles,
it's gentle enough not to complain about. However, he will steal
earrings, given any chance. Bec has learned not to give Scamp the
opportunity.

He's quite a "collector". We let him
sleep inside the house recently, and in the morning when we awoke, discovered nearly every object that's not nailed
down in the bathroom on our bed. This includes washcloths, bathtub
stopper, drain strainer, razors, soap, towel, plus slippers, socks, sneakers,
and an empty ashtray. As we laughed about it, we also realized - he must
have made 45 separate trips to collect all this stuff! He's a very
determined little fox. And he loves sleeping on my pillow. He'll
nuzzle at me until I pet him, usually in the middle of the night. Well, a
full night's sleep isn't mandatory every night.

In the last few days, he's followed me out into the
front yard several times. His drive to explore has taken him both into the
street and way back into the neighbor's yard. Of course, I worry about
this, in case something tries to catch him. He hasn't yet discovered any good
hiding places out front, and his attempts to climb the trees out front haven't been
worthwhile. The front yard is a lot more dangerous to his health than the
back yard is, and quality escape isn't nearly as available to him. And,
cars drive on the street, which causes more worry. He has been practicing
mad dashes all over the front yard, under our cars on the driveway, etc., and he
at least knows a couple of quality escapes, assuming he can get to them if he
really needs them. For what it's worth, I'm going to try not to encourage
him into the front yard.

Scamp mixed it up with a German Shepherd about a week
ago - thank God he wasn't seriously injured. Two permanent teeth in the
front were knocked out, and he suffered what we assume was very serious internal
bruising, but no blood or puncture wounds could be found anywhere on him.
Immediately after this altercation, we couldn't go near Scamp - he'd get more
aggressive than we'd ever seen him before - flattening his ears, gaping, showing
all his teeth, and making some serious growling noises. He would - and did
- try and bite, and these weren't normal rough playing bites - he literally tore
my fingers open. He laid down a lot, and didn't want to move around as he
normally does. He chose to show aggression instead of going away to
hide. This lasted for about 3 days. We were able to get some
antibiotics and aspirin into him with his food. This behavior has now
stopped, thankfully, which leads us to believe he was probably hurting very badly,
and in distress. He seemed to have "reverted to wild", if that
makes any sense. It seemed all his trust in us disappeared for a few days.

Scamp has been wild for 12 weeks now, and his
relationship with us hasn't changed noticeably. We've drastically reduced
the time he spends in the office, because living outside, he manages to get
pretty dusty. However, anytime Bec or I are outside, Scamp can usually
be found very close by. We've stopped feeding him several times a day, now
we typically just give him some dry dog food or table scraps once or twice a
day. Some days, we don't give him food. He's doing a good job of
finding his own food, and he's expanding his hunting zones to include all of our
property and the neighbor's yard as well. He comes to us immediately for
brushing and petting, and he's started a new behavior - he lays down for
brushing. You can see the delight in his eyes and face - this fox adores
being brushed! Then he rolls around so we can get to the good places.
But still no tail brushing - for Scamp that's a no-no.

We added a German Shepherd puppy (9 weeks old) to our
family, and Scamp is just bursting with curiosity about this new face.
Every time we let the puppy outside, Scamp shows up in seconds. He follows
the puppy all around our yard, getting closer each time. Occasionally, the
puppy will chase Scamp, and being a puppy, he gets about 5 steps before he loses
his coordination and goes rolling. Naturally, Scamp can just walk, he
doesn't even need to run to escape the puppy. But the interesting thing is
that it's obvious Scamp wants to meet the pup, and he's taking all the
initiative to make actual contact. He puts on his "body English"
to the puppy, and it's the same kind of moves he uses with us in play. I
suspect that they're going to go nose-to-nose very, very soon. I also
think Scamp is learning to discriminate - the big Shepherds will hurt
him, and he doesn't seek them out in quite the same way as he behaves with this
puppy.